


Best Served Married

by flesh



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-24
Updated: 2006-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:10:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flesh/pseuds/flesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“I've already told you: the only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.”</i> - Rodolphus decides to marry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Served Married

When Rodolphus decides to marry it takes him approximately fifty seconds to decide on his bride. Of all the families, only the Blacks have eligible daughters. And of the three Black sisters, Bellatrix is not only the eldest and the loveliest, she's also the most intriguing. 

Rodolphus nods to himself, pleased at having settled the matter, and goes back to The Daily Prophet.

*

It is arguably the finest rose in England. Its head is plump and perfectly shaped, a sensuous curve of petal like the arch of a woman's lip. Its velvety sheen glows night-time red. There's an intoxicating headiness in its perfume, enough to inspire moments of madness. Not a single thorn is on its long green stem. 

Rodolphus twirls the stem between his thumb and forefinger as he stands on the seafront and watches Bellatrix and her sisters cross the beach. The fresh breeze sweeps their skirts to the side, like the stroke of a brush through fresh paint. It's only their tiny, delicate feet that keep them from swirling up into the sky and vanishing into the rolling grey clouds like runaway umbrellas. 

He pushes himself up from the railings as the sisters begin to ascend the stone steps. He jerks his collar straight and wets his lips. He's handsome in an overtly masculine way, he's clever and he has an impeccable lineage, and he's about to get himself a wife. 

The scrape of Bellatrix's button-up ankle boots on the stone grows louder and then there she is: Kali in black lace gloves and a pillbox hat rising up into the miserable horizon.

Her pale eyes stare at him through the dotted net of her hat's veil and then they drop to the rose. Her sisters stand either side of her with the blank, cold expressions of priestesses watching a supplicant coming too close. 

"This was the loveliest rose I could find, dear Bellatrix, but I fear even this does not do your beauty justice," he says and holds the rose out to her.

Too many seconds pass before she takes the flower from him, and Rodolphus's smile is beginning to feel like a death mask. 

Painters would have stampeded to find the best point from which to paint the picture she makes as she smells the rose. The blush of the rose is reflected in the butterfly-wing translucence of her skin. It brings her alive, gives her substance, flesh and form from what is the cold perfection of black ink on a page.

Rodolphus frowns at the flash of small, white teeth as she calmly bites the head of the rose off. Her head rolls back and a single petal drifts to the ground as the ghastly Green Lady spits her mouthful of petals in Rodolphus's face. The crushed bloom sprinkles the shiny black tips of Rodolphus's shoes like a soft rainfall of blood. 

Narcissa's small tittering laugh breaks the hanging silence.

Bellatrix touches her fingertips to her lips in a delicate gesture, brushing away a stray petal that had clung to her mouth. She tosses the stem at Rodolphus's feet.

"I prefer my roses _with_ thorns, thank you, Mr Lestrange."

She moves past him in a rustle of skirts. Narcissa and Andromeda follow in her wake, going either side of Rodolphus like satin waves.

It is Rodolphus's first attempt to woo her nicely. It is also his last.

*

They don't know it but Sirius will not be the heir to Black house beyond the end of the week. Even if he _had_ known, Rodolphus wouldn't have cared. There is only one thing that matters, and that is the submission of Bellatrix Black. He will tame his shrew and will gladly leave her younger sisters for lesser men.

When Rodolphus enters the house, Bellatrix is at her parents' side at the top of the stairs. She is beautiful even when her lip curls ever so slightly at the sight of him. Her dark hair is piled up in an elaborate knot that he longs to untangle. Her gown is the same dark red as his rose, and when she lifts the full skirt in order to descend the stairs he sees her ankle. She is looking at him with the same disdainful expression when he looks back at her face.

He greets her parents and then lets them lead him into the ballroom. Bellatrix is left at the foot of the stairs.

*

He has no chance to snub her at the first dance, because Antonin Dolohov is holding his hand out to her before Rodolphus can even make his way through the clawing bramble of the exquisitely dressed party crowd to her side. He can only stand back to watch as Antonin murmurs something designed to appeal to her feminine sensibilities, his Slavic voice wrapped in charm no doubt. Rodolphus already recognises the mocking curve of Bellatrix's lips as she smiles, but she takes his hand nonetheless.

He lingers at the edges of the room and watches Bellatrix glide through the dance. She's barely touching Antonin, and she's certainly not looking at him. They circle amongst the other couples, until seen from above it must look like the glittering orbits of celestial bodies or the interlocking cogs of some alchemist's machine. Even in her place, surrounded by finery, Bellatrix is on a pedestal. 

It is damaging to both of them when their eyes meet. He should not be watching her, and she should not care enough to even register his existence. It is a point against both of them. There is nothing for it but resilience in the face of her arched eyebrow. Rodolphus does not look away, the hint of a smile playing at his lips even when she brushes her red lips against Antonin's cheek. A cheap trick, that, Rodolphus thinks. She'll have to learn that's not the way to play. 

When the dance ends, she shakes Antonin off like a coat gone out of fashion. She passes Rodolphus, and when she's close enough for him to smell the antique venom of her perfume, he half-bows to Andromeda. 

"May I have the pleasure of this dance?" he asks, and Bellatrix's spine stiffens with a snap of silk. 

An entire conversation passes between the two sisters in a single look, and then Andromeda takes his hand and lets him lead her to the floor. Andromeda is beautiful and sensible and if he were a man more inclined to domestic tranquillity, she would be the sister he'd choose. Never mind the ice-maiden Narcissa plays at being. And certainly steer clear of the hellcat, for all her winter-night looks.

He doesn't look at her once during their dance, and after he lets Andromeda go, he entreats a dance from Charlotte Crouch. Pretty face after pretty face, and all the while Bellatrix moves on like some poison-winged butterfly just a moment before he can reach her for conversation.

*

In the intimate gathering after the ball, when only those closest to the Black family remain, Bellatrix is called to the piano. Rodolphus sees she can take orders when it is her father giving them; for the old man she is all faint smiles and bowed head.

She settles at the piano with the cold, surgical area of a Healer before an opened ribcage. The piece she plays is so right for such a cosy little soiree that Rodolphus finds something oddly unsettling in the calculated perfection of it. He refuses to lapse into the mood she creates for everyone else. 

There's one other in the room fighting her spell: Lucius. He's a handsome man, and a wealthy one too. He has growing influence in current affairs. Any woman would be delighted to call him husband. But if the rumours are to be believed, Bellatrix refused his hand only two months previously. 

From the fiercely impassive look on Lucius's face, Rodolphus sees he is yet to accept the slight. He shines in the half-light, an ice sculpture lit up by firelight. He straightens when Bellatrix lifts her eyes from the sheet music; her pale-eyed gaze settles on Lucius for a second and then is gone. 

Rodolphus's stomach twists at the moment, and he forces an ugly smile. He leans forward and taps Lucius on the shoulder. His slender shoulders jump, and his neck snaps round. There's a diplomatic softening of his expression when he sees the Master of Lestrange House looking at him.

"You seem to have an admirer," says Rodolphus. He bites back the urge to _hurt_ Lucius when his eyes automatically flicker to Bellatrix. "Think blonder," he suggests.

It is sheer luck that Narcissa happens to have looked over at the rustle of voices that jar against the smoothness of her sister's performance. She looks at Lucius and Lucius looks at her, and Rodolphus feels easier. 

"Perhaps a little less of a suicidal choice, but still entertaining nonetheless."

Lucius is left uncertain what to say, and then he laughs with every appearance of good humour. Rodolphus echoes his laughter, just loudly enough that the music abruptly becomes second to the sound of it.

When he looks over at her, it's not Lucius that holds Bellatrix's gaze, but him. And the furious hatred in her eyes hits him with sudden arousal. 

*

It's an ambush. On a Serengeti of marble halls and oriental rugs, one finely dressed predator stalks another. It's just a matter of waiting.

Sirius is in the study with his father and his uncle. The two old men seem to have the matter decided between them, but Rodolphus knows that even gods have never stood a chance against beautiful youths. It is twenty minutes since the conference began, and Bellatrix, rising lady that she is, cannot keep away. 

He can hear the rustle of her skirts as she passes through the hall again and there's an answering prickle over his skin. The skirts give her away, just as a bell around a cat's neck is designed to warn the birds that death is coming.

He acts without thought, because that is the only way to take risks of such magnitude. She manages a startled breath before his arm is tight about the column of her throat. Her wand makes a tiny skittering sound as he rips it from her hand and throws it away. Her body seems small against him; he can press the layers of fabric flat and feel the shape of her beneath them. The sharp little points of her heels rattle out a frantic tattoo as he drags her into one of the dark parlours, but no one comes. 

It's like trying to hold onto a moving knife; she curves and twists, close to him in a flux of soft and sharp. Her mouth is on him at one point, like a child learning to kiss, and then her nails are scoring lines down his cheek.

He shakes her so hard he wouldn't be surprised to hear her spine snap and to have her sag against him, doll-limp. But she merely gasps for breath, breath which she uses to call him names he knows her father would beat her for saying. Her hair is falling about his fingers when he touches her, and her skin is flushed, like blood on china. 

He forces her down onto the sofa, and she doesn't go without a fight, but it only makes him harder. She should break under the weight of him. He's shattered men's jaws with his fist, and there's no gentleness as he drags her skirts up.

Yet she holds herself together with her constant struggling. Even when he pushes her down on the cushions, his hand at the splinter of her collarbone, she tries to crack his fingers. And it _hurts_. It hurts enough that it feels even better when he bites her throat in a mockery of a kiss. He's not so foolish as to put his mouth near hers, but he needs to taste her. 

Her skin tastes sweeter than he expected, so sweet that he's about to remark on it when a finger jabs him in the eye. Slytherin-slippery, Bellatrix takes that single moment he recoils to wriggle out from under him and run for the door.

Her breath is slammed from her lungs as he charges after her and crushes her between his own body and the door. She's so beautifully trapped, and he can take his time as he yanks her skirt up again and lets his fingers slip across the smooth, warm skin of her thigh. Underneath her skirts, there's lace and softness; she's a woman after all. He pushes against her, grinding the hardness of his cock that is straining beneath his dress robes, to the thin satiny layer of her underwear. 

Her cheek is crushed to the wooden plane of the door, and her mouth hangs open. She's crying, and for a moment Rodolphus wonders if he's over-estimated her: if she's just another little bitch after all. And then he sees the spark in her eyes and realises that her tears are born from desperate, helpless _rage_. 

He presses his mouth to her ear, letting his hot, wine-scented breath gust over her face, and feels her lithe muscles tense with the urge to do him harm.

"Marry me."

Half-choked as she is, Bellatrix's laughter is distinct. Rodolphus wonders how it would sound if he didn't have to keep her confined like this. He wonders if he could blunt the edge of her laugh if he had her in his bed, exquisite and _willing_ beneath him. 

He throws the thought aside: willingness is the second step. First, he needs the ring on her finger; he needs to bind her to him by law. 

He slips a finger under the lace-scalloped trim of her underwear, working the scrap of material to one side until he can feel her hot and wet in the palm of his hand. The hitch in her breath, a small angry sob, is proof enough that she's pure. He hadn't doubted it. Even famed for her beauty as she is, Bellatrix's reputation as a mad woman is a more widely known fact. 

There's something about being the first to touch her like this that softens his hungry fury. He likes the idea of taking a virgin to his wedding bed. 

"Are you going to scream for help, Bella?" he taunts her. "Going to call for your father, or your uncle? Or maybe young Sirius? You'll make such a lovely damsel in distress for them. Call for help. Let me hear you beg someone to come help you."

He doesn't know how he knows he's won: maybe it's in the sigh of her breath or the slight droop of her head which lets her hair fall over her face. He's gracious enough in victory to pull his hand away from between her legs and respectfully push her underwear back into place. 

"Marry me," he says gently. He turns her in his arms so that he might meet her eyes, and show her that her husband will take care of her, that it doesn't have to be all conflict, and is answered with a Glasgow kiss. Her head slams into his and he can barely believe that he's been headbutted by a corseted creature of pearls and silk when she's wrenching at the door handle and skittering out into the hallway. 

He's near blinded by the crashing throb of pain, but not so much that he can't wrap his fingers about her slender wrist. He almost has her back in his grasp when the study door opens. There is abruptly an audience of three Black males. 

Even faced with such a tableau, Sirius is the only one to break the rules of etiquette and draw his wand. 

"Just what is going on here, Rodolphus?" asks Cygnus.

Rodolphus draws himself up, and throws Cygnus's dishevelled, distraught daughter at his feet where she collapses in a shuddering bundle.

"I've come to ask for your permission to marry your daughter," Rodolphus informs him. 

He makes no attempt to tidy himself as Cygnus's gaze roves over him. His blood is as pure as any Black's, whether they like to acknowledge it or not. Besides, it all depends on whether Cygnus is the man Rodolphus believes him to be, not whether Rodolphus is the man Cygnus thinks of him as. Cygnus could take the incident as an affront and start a feud over it. Or, alternatively, he could take the opportunity offered. 

"Bellatrix?" he asks finally, looking down at his eldest girl.

She raises her head, and stares hatefully at Rodolphus through ravaged knots of her hair. He smiles at her and sees an answering smile blossom on her face, like pale yellow dawn after a storm at night.

"Give him to me," she whispers.

END


End file.
